1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a feeder connector used for charging for electric vehicles, and more particularly to a feeder connector which can easily cause a male terminal to be fit into a female terminal with minimum force.
2. Description of the Prior Art
FIG. 11 shows a feeding-side connector 51 which has been proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,350,312 issued Sep. 27, 1994 one inventor of which is included in the inventors of the present application. The feeding-side connector 51 adopts the principle of a lever as a means for pushing a connector body 53 incorporating a female terminal 52 forward. When a lever 54 is grasped, the feeding-side connector 51 rotates at a fulcrum of pin 55. Then, a pin 56 serves as an operating point so that the connector body 53 is pushed by means of a handle 57. The relaxing rate of insertion force using the lever 54 can be represented by an equation (L1/L2).times.100% as apparent from FIG. 11.
In using the above feeding-side connector, the lever 54 or handle 57 is operated by one hand or both hands. Therefore, the lever stroke which is much larger than the palm of a hand cannot be obtained and the stroke of the connector body 53 cannot be also increased. Thus, the force of insertion is also limited. For this reason, such a feeding-side connector as shown in FIG. 11 is not suitable as a large scale connector for a large current.
Further, an electric lock 58 and a releasing lever 59 associated with the lever 54 are used in order to maintain the fit-lock state between the feeding-side connector 51 and a corresponding receiving-connector (not shown). This makes the internal structure of the feeding-side connector complicated, thus requiring a long time for its assembling.